So, it’s been about a year since my first WHY post, so I thought perhaps I should revisit the idea. What I did was pose some questions that had been gnawing at me to see if you, my loyal reader(s?), could help explain them. I got 5 comments out of it – sadly that’s a personal best for me – so I thought perhaps you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. No? Well, let’s try it again anyway.
1. WHY is it that Donald Trump is trying to run for President?! Does he really believe he has a shot in hell of being elected? He’s not used to people telling him no. How would that go over in dealing with Congress? Other world leaders? Would he simply “fire” Ghadhafi and expect all of those problems to go away? He’s not qualified to be our president. He’s not reasonable enough to be our president. And if, for no other reason, I would not vote for him because he doesn’t have sense enough to abandon that ridiculous hair. That, more than anything else, proves he is incapable of leading this country.
2. WHY are people buying tickets to Charlie Sheen’s Torpedo of Truth tour? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?? It is bad enough that we must be kept abreast of his every move via the media, but for people to actually be interested in what this man has to say – it’s ludicrous! Last year I was ranting about being disgusted that Kate Gosselin was all over the place and that we were all expected to care about her. The interest in her has (thankfully) waned, but unfortunately has been replaced by interested in him. And he’s CRAZY. Or high. Or both. We shouldn’t listen to him. We should shut him up and hope that someone gets him some help. The fact that Japan could have a tsunami that could kill thousands of people and he would make the cover of People Magazine is a sad, sad commentary on what we think is worth our time and attention.
3. WHY is every song now sung by someone and “feat.” someone else? Half of the top 10 songs on I-Tunes are sung by one artist but “feat.” someone usually with a completely ridiculous name. All these hip-hop artists have the most absurd names. Big Boi, Mista F.A.B, Sista Soulja, Ludacris (which I actually think is clever since his actual name is Chris), Acafool (that is not a typo), Sticky Fingaz, Flo’Rida (he’s actually from Florida! Who knew?!) Killa Priest, etc. Then there’s C-Murder. This guy’s not even trying. No clever innuendo. No double entendre. He just goes straight to C-Murder. Perhaps we don't have long to wait before becoming acquainted with MC-Drugs or J-Gun Violence. C-Murder?! That’s not clever at all. It’s not a witty pun. It’s not a krazy spelling. It doesn’t mean anything – just… C-Murder. Sounds like a charming young man. Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, C-Murder.
I think these names are so silly and in a lot of cases so violent. Their names need to evoke more positive images than murder and mayhem - especially during these tough times that are upon us. Here are some of my suggestions:
Skippy Meadows
C-Kittens
Chair I Tee
Mista Rogers
Sunny Fancypants
Anything but C-Murder. What a downer!
4. WHY is everyone so fascinated by the upcoming royal wedding? Newsflash people: They are not our royal family. And monarchies are silly and archaic anyway. What do we care about Prince William and Kate Middleton? I hope they have a happy marriage, but I hope that for anyone getting married. Aside from that, I don’t much care about it. I don’t want to know her wedding workout regimen. I don’t want to buy a commemorative plate with their faces on it. I don’t want to win a replica of her ring. I don’t plan to watch it on TV. I plan to wake up that day and go through my normal routine. My life won’t change when they get married. Will yours? And if it will, what is wrong with you?!
5. WHY do I always have to pee ten times before going to bed? I think it’s a mental thing – this irrational fear that as soon as I get comfortable and on the verge of sleep, I’ll have to pee. So instead of ever getting comfortable, I just have to get up and pee several times. It also happens whenever I go snow skiing. I’ll get all bundled up in my 17 layers of clothing and then have to take it all off (or pull it down – whatever) and go to the bathroom. Very annoying. Another weird fact about my bladder (since you asked and all…) is that whenever I am hiding from someone, it instantly makes me have to pee. Not that I hide from people regularly (that kind of makes me sound like a freak) but even as a kid if I was playing hide and seek, I would go hide in the closet and almost wet my pants. It happens today if I am playing with the kids. Does that make me weird? Have I over-shared?
6. WHY is it that when I give up chips (except for chips in a Mexican restaurant – I have to have an “out”) for Lent as I have done this year, every room I walk into smells like Fritos? Or Cheetos? Or Doritos? Or tasty Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles? Or Barbecue Lays? Or Funyuns? I can smell these beautiful smells everywhere and yet, I cannot indulge. After Easter, I know it will go away and every room will begin smelling like stale breath and/or feet again. Isn’t that how it always works?
7. WHY are so many people still being diagnosed with and, in many cases, dying of cancer? One of Mike’s friends has Stage 4 cancer; one of my friends has Stage 2 colon cancer. Two of my work friends have very close family members who are incurable. And, of course, you all know a person or people who have it or have had it. So many young people are being diagnosed, too. What is going on? And all of these people who are stealing identities and creating super viruses that can make your computer explode – what would happen if they used their brains for good instead of evil? Might we be closer to a cure if the number of bad people out there made choices to do something positive for someone else? I hate people who are smart enough to make a positive contribution and then do the opposite. I hate them.
8. WHO (oops! Not a WHY question, but important nonetheless) creates all of the Apps (I hate that word, but I’d sound like a geek if I called them Applications) available for your I-Phone? Who has that kind of time? Who thought, “Dammit! I’m going to create a game where you use a slingshot to hurl a bunch of pissed off birds toward some pigs so they can blow them up!” We haven’t cured cancer but we have Angry Birds. Not that Angry Birds is completely unnecessary. It is nice to have some mindless entertainment. But who thinks of these things? I have no idea why these things are necessary, but apparently to millions of people (myself included) they are. How did we ever survive before Doodle Jump?
9. WHY do people seem to always create a walkway right in front of me when I’m standing in a line? It never fails. If I am in a large crowd and people are trying to push their way through, they will always walk over to where I’m standing and squeeze in between me and whoever is standing next to me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m fairly small and people assume they can just bulldoze right past me and I won’t be able to do much about it, but whatever it is, it’s annoying. I will purposely not make eye contact with people because I know they’ll think it gives them license to use me as a walkway. Even without acknowledging me, they’ll still choose either right in front of me or right in back of me to make their way to wherever it is they are going. Every time.
10. WHY are so many air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job right now? I work for a manufacturing company. If you are caught sleeping, you get fired. There’s just too much machinery and too many dangers to yourself and to others if you sleep. The odds of a person falling asleep and something horrible happening are obviously extremely low, but it’s important to note nonetheless. Now, if your job is solely to keep things flowing safely and smoothly – arrivals, departures – and keep the air traffic… well, controlled, then I would think you would also be fired for falling asleep on the job. These people who have been in the news lately for doing just that are being suspended when they get caught. Suspended! That’s it! If I’m an air traffic controller and I fall asleep, I am risking the lives of at least one entire plane full of people, people on the ground, etc.
Also where I work, good attendance is a requirement for your job. A colleague of mine was in an Unemployment hearing for an associate who we had terminated for poor attendance. The hearing officer actually asked my colleague if the terminated employee had been made aware that attendance was a requirement of the job. We all joked about it at the time – if a person doesn’t realize that showing up is a crucial part of the job, what is the world coming to?! Similarly, if I’m an air traffic controller, I’m thinking at the very least I should be awake. I mean, these people don’t seem to have an attendance problem. But the problem is, they are not conscious when they are on the job – another crucial piece to, I dare say, just about any job out there. What is going on? And why were these people merely suspended? If they have no more regard for the lives in their care, they don’t deserve to have their jobs. What I want to know is, why this happening so much right now? Are these air traffic contollers just inexplicably passing out on their jobs or has this been happening all along and the media is only now becoming aware of it?
11. WHY do kids instinctively know that "potty words" as we call them in our household are so funny? My kids talk and giggle about their bottoms/hineys, poop, their ba-ginas, their beeboos (boobies), tee tee and tooting ALL THE TIME. We've tried to not draw attention to these words for fear of giving them a stigma and making them more attractive to our girls, but that doesn't seem to matter. They proudly use those words - in mixed company or not - and just laugh their little bottoms/hineys off. They'll ask to see my bottom (big mistake, girls, for this is a preview of what yours will look like one day and it aint pretty) and want to touch my beeboos because they know its silly and naughty. How did they turn out this way? When does innocence go away? Apparerntly as early as age three.
And finally...
12. WHY is it that at a time when I am focused on how much money I am spending I choose that exact moment to wreck my car? (Let me clarify here – it’s not that I normally just wildly spend money. I don’t at all. But, I am more tuned in to what we are spending these days because we have made a few renovations to our lake house and we have to furnish a couple of new rooms, etc.) I was driving on this little country road on the way to go get supplies from Lowe’s on Saturday when out darts this ratty looking cat. I don’t even like cats (except Lola, Mary) and yet my instinct was to do a hard swerve to avoid hitting it and ran into a construction sign on the side of the road demolishing my front right tire and side mirror and tearing a huge gash in the body of my car. This (probably) stray cat – whose life is probably worth less than $10 – will now cost us who knows how many thousands of dollars in repairs. And all while I am trying to be contentious of money. That’s what I get for worrying about what I’m spending. I won’t make that mistake again.
A funny side note – My three year old asked me where my car was since I was driving her daddy’s car. I told her I had had an accident in mine and couldn’t drive it. She turned to me and asked, very concerned, “Did you tee tee in your car?” I guess to a three year old, that’s what it means to have an accident. If only I had tee teed in my car. Would’ve been a lot cheaper.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
I Hate Atlanta
Damn you, Atlanta. You with your smug arts and never-ending assortment of things to do. And damn your constant road work and crazy drivers. For they make it impossible for me to make good time while traveling.
As if there wasn’t already enough to do in Atlanta, they just had to go and build an enormous aquarium that makes Chattanooga’s look like a project I could have done for a middle school science fair. Why? Why would they build the one thing that actually draws people to Chattanooga (other than the underwhelming Choo-Choo and Ruby Falls) and do it bigger and better? Do you realize that all we have now is Rock City? And if you’ve seen Rock City once (as countless billboards and painted barns along the interstate advise you to do), you’ve seen it 100 times. Big whoop.
I went to Atlanta (I refuse to refer to it by the hipper, more popular “the A-T-L” that the cool kids use) this weekend with one of my daughters to meet up with my sister and her son who was in a hip hop dance competition (Go, Jack!). We decided to spend our afternoon Saturday doing something Atlanta-ish. We’d not been to their aquarium before so we decided we’d go.
The aquarium was, of course, fine. It was big and nice and had a better diversity of things to see than does the one in Chattanooga. They had whales – whales! – and all kinds of neat things that Chattanooga’s doesn’t… blah, blah, blah. But I was completely irritated before we ever even got there because…well, because I was in Atlanta.
I was driving along minding my own business enjoying a nice, sunny day on the open road. Kate and I were excited to see Mary and Jack. Spring was in almost full bloom around us. It had the makings of a nice day. I even began to think that perhaps I’d get through Atlanta without getting held up in any typical Atlanta crazy traffic.
Wrong.
As I began to descend on the city, there was a lighted billboard that advised that up ahead on 75 South – right where I was going - there was road work that had closed three left lanes (a city is too damn big if there are three left lanes, by the way). My cheerful mood began to dissipate as I saw the sea of red tail lights I was headed straight toward. So, as it usually goes whenever I have to go to or through Atlanta, I got stopped and I sat. And I waited. And I sat. And I waited. And I sat. And I cursed – but internally so Kate wouldn’t learn any new colorful words.
One of the most telling things about Atlanta traffic is a story I like to tell about my experience there several years ago. I was on Peachtree Road over by Lenox Mall and it was just bumper to bumper with nobody moving and everyone getting frustrated. As we inched along, I noticed the entire front bumper (including a UGA license plate) of a car, just sitting there in the road. What that tells me is that someone was involved in a fender-bender in which the front half of their car fell off and they simply said, “to hell with it” and kept driving just so they could get home. I mean seriously – would you not get out of your car and survey the damage? Of course you would. But this was Atlanta. This guy just made an executive decision to leave half of his car in the road just so he could get the hell out of the traffic. Aaaaah, Atlanta.
Of course, on the interstate you had the typical people who thought they were somehow exempt from the road signs who just kept barreling on ahead to try and sneakily merge into the right lane at the last minute. Who are the idiots who let these obnoxious people over? I have a rule that if I leave room for you to get over and you pass it by thinking you’ve got a better deal up ahead, I will do everything within my power to see that you are afforded no such opportunity again. If you pass me when I’ve offered you a coveted spot in front of me, then as God as my witness you are NOT going to try and get in front of me when you run out of road, you selfish bastard. I get so annoyed when people let these people in at the last minute. It doesn’t even register with these do-gooders that they are enabling these inconsiderate drivers to continue to do this in the future.
Then you had the constant lane-changers who kept darting back and forth between lanes thinking they’d somehow get to the next mile marker faster if they could just identify the winning lane. At the rate we were going (which was 5mph), we were all pretty much going to get there at the same time. We didn’t all need to live in fear that someone was about to zip out right in front of us and cause an accident. Had these people not been to Atlanta before? Were they not expecting massive gridlock? Did they not realize that when they dashed into the other lane causing four or five cars to slam on their brakes that they were actually slowing the entire process down? Morons.
So, I finally got through the road work and came upon the exit that was supposed to take me right to the Aquarium. I can see a light change up ahead and only about 3 cars manage to get through before it turns red again. I’m thinking there must be a wreck ahead. But then I see another billboard. Apparently the WWE was having some kind of major event right next to where I wanted to go. While I was appreciative to not have this gathering of rednecks in Chattanooga, WHY did it have to be going on in Atlanta the one day I was there? Atlanta has a bazillion things to do - why on earth is it necessary to have the WWE in town? But in town they were, so it took another 20 minutes just to turn right off of the interstate. My blood was boiling at this point because for much of the past 45 minutes to an hour I could see exactly where I needed to go up ahead, I just couldn’t get there. I wanted to scream but had to stifle it so Kate wouldn’t learn any of the aforementioned colorful words.
So, we went to the Aquarium and it was bigger, newer and nicer than the one we have in Chattanooga. I was annoyed because people didn’t need another reason to go to Atlanta. There's already plenty to do there. There was no need to compete with Chattanooga. You won. We get it. What’s next? “Boulder Town” to rival Rock City? “Red Waters” to rival Ruby Falls? Grrrr. Why couldn’t you have just left us alone? What have we ever done to you?
The ride home on Sunday was just as bad. We got caught in the same construction going north so it took us forever to get out of the city and on our way back to Chattanooga. The good news is that because the traffic happened early in our trek, I was over being angry and irritated about an hour into the trip. The rest of the ride home was fairly uneventful – since not very many people were trying to get to Chattanooga (they were all going to Atlanta where there are neat things to do!). And just when I was thinking how nice it was to be back in a city that was more reasonably sized with the right amount of people (and left lanes), we got stuck in standstill traffic. For almost 45 minutes. Grrrrr.
As if there wasn’t already enough to do in Atlanta, they just had to go and build an enormous aquarium that makes Chattanooga’s look like a project I could have done for a middle school science fair. Why? Why would they build the one thing that actually draws people to Chattanooga (other than the underwhelming Choo-Choo and Ruby Falls) and do it bigger and better? Do you realize that all we have now is Rock City? And if you’ve seen Rock City once (as countless billboards and painted barns along the interstate advise you to do), you’ve seen it 100 times. Big whoop.
I went to Atlanta (I refuse to refer to it by the hipper, more popular “the A-T-L” that the cool kids use) this weekend with one of my daughters to meet up with my sister and her son who was in a hip hop dance competition (Go, Jack!). We decided to spend our afternoon Saturday doing something Atlanta-ish. We’d not been to their aquarium before so we decided we’d go.
The aquarium was, of course, fine. It was big and nice and had a better diversity of things to see than does the one in Chattanooga. They had whales – whales! – and all kinds of neat things that Chattanooga’s doesn’t… blah, blah, blah. But I was completely irritated before we ever even got there because…well, because I was in Atlanta.
I was driving along minding my own business enjoying a nice, sunny day on the open road. Kate and I were excited to see Mary and Jack. Spring was in almost full bloom around us. It had the makings of a nice day. I even began to think that perhaps I’d get through Atlanta without getting held up in any typical Atlanta crazy traffic.
Wrong.
As I began to descend on the city, there was a lighted billboard that advised that up ahead on 75 South – right where I was going - there was road work that had closed three left lanes (a city is too damn big if there are three left lanes, by the way). My cheerful mood began to dissipate as I saw the sea of red tail lights I was headed straight toward. So, as it usually goes whenever I have to go to or through Atlanta, I got stopped and I sat. And I waited. And I sat. And I waited. And I sat. And I cursed – but internally so Kate wouldn’t learn any new colorful words.
One of the most telling things about Atlanta traffic is a story I like to tell about my experience there several years ago. I was on Peachtree Road over by Lenox Mall and it was just bumper to bumper with nobody moving and everyone getting frustrated. As we inched along, I noticed the entire front bumper (including a UGA license plate) of a car, just sitting there in the road. What that tells me is that someone was involved in a fender-bender in which the front half of their car fell off and they simply said, “to hell with it” and kept driving just so they could get home. I mean seriously – would you not get out of your car and survey the damage? Of course you would. But this was Atlanta. This guy just made an executive decision to leave half of his car in the road just so he could get the hell out of the traffic. Aaaaah, Atlanta.
Of course, on the interstate you had the typical people who thought they were somehow exempt from the road signs who just kept barreling on ahead to try and sneakily merge into the right lane at the last minute. Who are the idiots who let these obnoxious people over? I have a rule that if I leave room for you to get over and you pass it by thinking you’ve got a better deal up ahead, I will do everything within my power to see that you are afforded no such opportunity again. If you pass me when I’ve offered you a coveted spot in front of me, then as God as my witness you are NOT going to try and get in front of me when you run out of road, you selfish bastard. I get so annoyed when people let these people in at the last minute. It doesn’t even register with these do-gooders that they are enabling these inconsiderate drivers to continue to do this in the future.
Then you had the constant lane-changers who kept darting back and forth between lanes thinking they’d somehow get to the next mile marker faster if they could just identify the winning lane. At the rate we were going (which was 5mph), we were all pretty much going to get there at the same time. We didn’t all need to live in fear that someone was about to zip out right in front of us and cause an accident. Had these people not been to Atlanta before? Were they not expecting massive gridlock? Did they not realize that when they dashed into the other lane causing four or five cars to slam on their brakes that they were actually slowing the entire process down? Morons.
So, I finally got through the road work and came upon the exit that was supposed to take me right to the Aquarium. I can see a light change up ahead and only about 3 cars manage to get through before it turns red again. I’m thinking there must be a wreck ahead. But then I see another billboard. Apparently the WWE was having some kind of major event right next to where I wanted to go. While I was appreciative to not have this gathering of rednecks in Chattanooga, WHY did it have to be going on in Atlanta the one day I was there? Atlanta has a bazillion things to do - why on earth is it necessary to have the WWE in town? But in town they were, so it took another 20 minutes just to turn right off of the interstate. My blood was boiling at this point because for much of the past 45 minutes to an hour I could see exactly where I needed to go up ahead, I just couldn’t get there. I wanted to scream but had to stifle it so Kate wouldn’t learn any of the aforementioned colorful words.
So, we went to the Aquarium and it was bigger, newer and nicer than the one we have in Chattanooga. I was annoyed because people didn’t need another reason to go to Atlanta. There's already plenty to do there. There was no need to compete with Chattanooga. You won. We get it. What’s next? “Boulder Town” to rival Rock City? “Red Waters” to rival Ruby Falls? Grrrr. Why couldn’t you have just left us alone? What have we ever done to you?
The ride home on Sunday was just as bad. We got caught in the same construction going north so it took us forever to get out of the city and on our way back to Chattanooga. The good news is that because the traffic happened early in our trek, I was over being angry and irritated about an hour into the trip. The rest of the ride home was fairly uneventful – since not very many people were trying to get to Chattanooga (they were all going to Atlanta where there are neat things to do!). And just when I was thinking how nice it was to be back in a city that was more reasonably sized with the right amount of people (and left lanes), we got stuck in standstill traffic. For almost 45 minutes. Grrrrr.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Food, Glorious Food!
Here it is the end of March and I haven’t updated this silly thing all year. The truth is, there has been NOTHING to write about. No funny stories. No interesting observations. No witty sarcasm. But Maggie, you may be thinking, you’ve never written about any of that stuff before either. How right you are! Things around here have been pretty dull since the weather has been so slow to change to spring. It’s been cold and rainy/snowy and no one has really done much of anything. But I now have something that I feel may make for decent reading. So here goes.
Since the last week of January, I have been following a newdiet nutrition plan. I refuse to call it a “diet” because I do not believe in diets. I think most if not all diets are unhealthy in some way (Eat tons of fat but no bread! Only eat grapefruit! Only sniff ketchup as your breakfast!) They just seem to set you up for failure because you are cutting something totally out of your diet. And obviously you liked eating it because it wouldn’t have been in your diet otherwise. So, you cut it out and lose a few pounds. Then once you hit your target you start eating it again and wonder why you’ve gained all of your weight back. I just think you can only be successful if you eat the things you want in moderation and make more positive than negative choices.
So, here we are on March 30th, 9 weeks into this exercise and I have lost a total of twelve pounds (and a few ounces!!). I have surpassed my original goal of ten pounds. My husband, who has done this with me, has also gotten down to his goal. Now for me, weight loss is not the ultimate goal. Yes, I needed to lose some weight. But the real goal is to be healthy and not eat a bunch of junk. I also have had high cholesterol for about five years no and I know it is due to the stuff I eat. So, at work, there is a program that others have had long-term success with, so I thought I’d give it a shot. The upside to thisdiet nutrition plan is that there are classes each week that teach you how foods break down in your body and how to pair foods together to maximize fat burning. The other plus for this diet nutrition plan is that it is a program which understands that you like pizza. And tacos. And cheeseburgers. And bacon. And potato chips. And beer. And sausage. And ice cream. And ribeyes. And fried chicken. And cookies. And… you get the point. It allows you to have days where you blow your diet to hell for roughly two days a week which, frankly, is the only way I’d ever be successful.
Now, I am not writing this to be an advocate for this particulardiet nutrition plan or to detract from any other program you may be on. I’m just telling you it’s the only diet nutrition plan I have ever heard of that actually appears to be healthy and actually gets sustainable results. If any of you want to talk with me about my experience I’ll be glad to do that, but I’m certainly not trying to drum up business for them. They can do that on their own.
What I do want to tell you about is what I have discovered about my relationship with food. That relationship is, in a word, unhealthy. I never knew how much I think about food, plan my meals, go out of my way for something good to eat, and associate “fun” with eating until I began limiting the bad things I was eating. I learned this because the first week of thisdiet nutrition plan is fairly restrictive. You basically only eat lean proteins and fibrous carbohydrates for 7 days before you begin adding back in the other things. So, I was staring down 7 days of eating nothing but chicken, fish, salads and vegetables. How did it go?
Well, on day two, I considered going out into the woods to hunt down and kill a wild boar, feast on his sweet, juicy meat, and then pick my teeth with one of his ribs. Not because I was hungry. I really wasn’t. The protein was filling me up. But I just missed the gluttonous meals to which I had become accustomed. I mentioned earlier that thisdiet nutrition plan allows you to blow it two days a week. As it turns out, I was blowing it two times a day.
My old way of doing things was that I would start out with my very healthy breakfast of yogurt and a piece of fruit. Then, if I was at work, I would start emailing people around 9:30 to firm up my lunch plans. I looked at lunch as my most important appointment of the day. It was a win-win: I got to eat a bunch of yummy food and hang out with my friends. I used to be so annoyed with my friends who were following thisdiet nutrition plan when I would ask them to lunch and they would decline because they had brought their lunch. Or even worse – if they accepted and then ate fish and steamed vegetables while I drenched my chicken fingers in ranch dressing. What were they trying to prove, anyway?
If I wasn’t at work, it meant I was at home with my daughter running errands and usually grabbing something to eat while I was out. She likes grilled cheese and chicken nuggets and quesadillas and such, so we’d always go somewhere where she could get that. And if I’m out, I’m going to order something good, so I’d eat like that, too. In fact, I’d plan my errands around what restaurants they were close to. I never realized I did that until I decided I wouldn’t eat like that anymore. You know what happened? I lost all interest in running errands. Even fun errands like clothes shopping. What’s the point if I can’t go to Moe’s after I buy a pair of pants to replace the ones I’ve grown out of?
So that would be lunch on any given day. For dinner, we’d eat out a lot. My husband would joke that if I told him it was time to eat, he’d start loading the kids into their car seats. The truth was, we would eat out a lot. I discovered through thisdiet nutrition plan that one of the reasons we’d eat out so often is because at around 2:00 in the afternoon, I’d start thinking about pizza or Mexican. I’d begin to crave it and before I knew it would have committed myself to a plan that involved either picking it up or going out and eating it. It was strange that I’d even be thinking of food so early because I would have stuffed myself at lunch and still be miserably full at that time. My portions were not what a reasonable person would or should eat. They’d serve me my lunch at a restaurant and I’d think Oh my goodness that’s way too much food. Yet, I’d clean my plate every time.
On the rare occasion that I would actually cook something for dinner, it was usually something unhealthy. If I made it, it was convenient to make. If it’s convenient to make, odds are it’s full of things that are very unhealthy. Sometimes, though, I would decide that I should be sure my children had not lost their ability to recognize vegetables and I would fix “chicken and vegetables”. When I decided to fix this for dinner, I’d get depressed about it as soon as I’d finish my lunch. Nothing to look forward to for dinner… And I’d always be sure that chicken and vegetables included a corn casserole or some kind of side dish that was full of butter, or cream-of-whatever soup or something fatty to make it tasty. So even on the nights we were eating in and eating "healthy", we weren’t eating healthy. And on top of that, I wasn’t satisfied because what I really wanted was a chili dog.
So going back to that first week, it was a shock to me how bummed I was because I knew I wasn’t going to get to eat anything I wanted until the weekend. (I had decided to allow myself to blow it on the weekends from the beginning.) Food consumed my every thought. And when I say “consumed”, I am well aware that I have chosen a word that is very closely identified with food. I was at work one day and we were throwing out ideas about how to get some members of our team more engaged. I started thinking to myself about having roundtable meetings for these associates early in the morning. Before I knew it, I was thinking about getting Chik-fil-A to cater breakfast biscuits for everyone. My mind immediately went to the social nature of eating and how that was the glue that would hold us all together. I was so fixated on food that I was using it as a means to have a meeting. Forget the content of the meeting. I really wasn’t thinking about that at all. I was thinking about and salivating over chicken biscuits. In the early days of following thisdiet nutrition plan, I found myself doing that a lot. I discovered that I largely associate food with EVERYTHING. And I did it all the time.
On the second day – the please let me kill and eat a wild boar day I like to call it – if my husband had said, “let’s quit” I would have in a minute. I was almost depressed about not being able to eat something big and nasty. We had a sitter for the kids one night and my thought was, well what’s the point of going out? We can’t eat anything good… And in my mind, I was struggling with thoughts of I’m never going to enjoy food again!!!!.
But as I stuck with it – and I’m proud of myself for sticking with it; it’s very un-Maggie-like – I began to notice that if I could make it through the week on healthy foods, I’d be okay and would celebrate on the weekends. As more time passed, I celebrated less on the weekends. Now, I didn’t cut out the burgers and junk food altogether on the weekends. But I also wasn’t doing that at every meal. In other words, I began to feel a little guilty for just going hog (there’s that wild boar again) wild on Saturday and Sunday. I was getting results (didn’t have to stuff myself into my pants and squat for several minutes at a time as much) and so I wanted that to continue.
As things stand today, I have dropped two pants sizes and have lost more than 15 inches all over my body. My entire family is eating healthier foods on a regular basis. My kids like squash and broccoli. Who knew?! And that’s just since the last week of January. I’ve seen thisdiet nutrition plan work for others and I can attest to the fact that it does work if you are committed to it. I am not as tired. I am more alert. I am exercising more (healthy patterns tend to develop when you are getting results in one area). And I’ve been able to go out and get some new clothes and not feel guilty about it – I can’t wear many of my old clothes!
So, what is the lesson here? Well, there’s not one. I’m not here to educate you. I’m here to entertain you (in case that wasn’t obvious). But I will say that I don’t think I’m the only one obsessed with food. Most TV commercials are about restaurant offerings (and erectile dysfunction remedies, but I can't help ya there). There are billboards everywhere picturing plump, glistening cheeseburgers. Food is everywhere. And our country is fat. No one has time to commit to changing their lifestyle. But I’m here to tell you that I changed mine. And I’m not one to commit to anything that requires a lot of work. Or thought. Or energy. Or time. Or planning. And other than that second day, it has been relatively easy. And I’ve been satisfied with what I’m eating as well as the results I’ve seen.
I weighed in today just to see how it was going. The last time I weighed, I had lost almost 10 pounds. That was two weeks ago. I ate like a pig last weekend. I stepped onto the scale just to see how I was doing and discovered that I had lost just over two more pounds. Some habits are hard to break – when I saw this the first thing I did was consider getting a chili dog for dinner. I even texted my husband and sort of jokingly said that’s what I wanted to do to celebrate my weight loss. If he had agreed, guess what I’d be eating for dinner.
Since the last week of January, I have been following a new
So, here we are on March 30th, 9 weeks into this exercise and I have lost a total of twelve pounds (and a few ounces!!). I have surpassed my original goal of ten pounds. My husband, who has done this with me, has also gotten down to his goal. Now for me, weight loss is not the ultimate goal. Yes, I needed to lose some weight. But the real goal is to be healthy and not eat a bunch of junk. I also have had high cholesterol for about five years no and I know it is due to the stuff I eat. So, at work, there is a program that others have had long-term success with, so I thought I’d give it a shot. The upside to this
Now, I am not writing this to be an advocate for this particular
What I do want to tell you about is what I have discovered about my relationship with food. That relationship is, in a word, unhealthy. I never knew how much I think about food, plan my meals, go out of my way for something good to eat, and associate “fun” with eating until I began limiting the bad things I was eating. I learned this because the first week of this
Well, on day two, I considered going out into the woods to hunt down and kill a wild boar, feast on his sweet, juicy meat, and then pick my teeth with one of his ribs. Not because I was hungry. I really wasn’t. The protein was filling me up. But I just missed the gluttonous meals to which I had become accustomed. I mentioned earlier that this
My old way of doing things was that I would start out with my very healthy breakfast of yogurt and a piece of fruit. Then, if I was at work, I would start emailing people around 9:30 to firm up my lunch plans. I looked at lunch as my most important appointment of the day. It was a win-win: I got to eat a bunch of yummy food and hang out with my friends. I used to be so annoyed with my friends who were following this
If I wasn’t at work, it meant I was at home with my daughter running errands and usually grabbing something to eat while I was out. She likes grilled cheese and chicken nuggets and quesadillas and such, so we’d always go somewhere where she could get that. And if I’m out, I’m going to order something good, so I’d eat like that, too. In fact, I’d plan my errands around what restaurants they were close to. I never realized I did that until I decided I wouldn’t eat like that anymore. You know what happened? I lost all interest in running errands. Even fun errands like clothes shopping. What’s the point if I can’t go to Moe’s after I buy a pair of pants to replace the ones I’ve grown out of?
So that would be lunch on any given day. For dinner, we’d eat out a lot. My husband would joke that if I told him it was time to eat, he’d start loading the kids into their car seats. The truth was, we would eat out a lot. I discovered through this
On the rare occasion that I would actually cook something for dinner, it was usually something unhealthy. If I made it, it was convenient to make. If it’s convenient to make, odds are it’s full of things that are very unhealthy. Sometimes, though, I would decide that I should be sure my children had not lost their ability to recognize vegetables and I would fix “chicken and vegetables”. When I decided to fix this for dinner, I’d get depressed about it as soon as I’d finish my lunch. Nothing to look forward to for dinner… And I’d always be sure that chicken and vegetables included a corn casserole or some kind of side dish that was full of butter, or cream-of-whatever soup or something fatty to make it tasty. So even on the nights we were eating in and eating "healthy", we weren’t eating healthy. And on top of that, I wasn’t satisfied because what I really wanted was a chili dog.
So going back to that first week, it was a shock to me how bummed I was because I knew I wasn’t going to get to eat anything I wanted until the weekend. (I had decided to allow myself to blow it on the weekends from the beginning.) Food consumed my every thought. And when I say “consumed”, I am well aware that I have chosen a word that is very closely identified with food. I was at work one day and we were throwing out ideas about how to get some members of our team more engaged. I started thinking to myself about having roundtable meetings for these associates early in the morning. Before I knew it, I was thinking about getting Chik-fil-A to cater breakfast biscuits for everyone. My mind immediately went to the social nature of eating and how that was the glue that would hold us all together. I was so fixated on food that I was using it as a means to have a meeting. Forget the content of the meeting. I really wasn’t thinking about that at all. I was thinking about and salivating over chicken biscuits. In the early days of following this
On the second day – the please let me kill and eat a wild boar day I like to call it – if my husband had said, “let’s quit” I would have in a minute. I was almost depressed about not being able to eat something big and nasty. We had a sitter for the kids one night and my thought was, well what’s the point of going out? We can’t eat anything good… And in my mind, I was struggling with thoughts of I’m never going to enjoy food again!!!!.
But as I stuck with it – and I’m proud of myself for sticking with it; it’s very un-Maggie-like – I began to notice that if I could make it through the week on healthy foods, I’d be okay and would celebrate on the weekends. As more time passed, I celebrated less on the weekends. Now, I didn’t cut out the burgers and junk food altogether on the weekends. But I also wasn’t doing that at every meal. In other words, I began to feel a little guilty for just going hog (there’s that wild boar again) wild on Saturday and Sunday. I was getting results (didn’t have to stuff myself into my pants and squat for several minutes at a time as much) and so I wanted that to continue.
As things stand today, I have dropped two pants sizes and have lost more than 15 inches all over my body. My entire family is eating healthier foods on a regular basis. My kids like squash and broccoli. Who knew?! And that’s just since the last week of January. I’ve seen this
So, what is the lesson here? Well, there’s not one. I’m not here to educate you. I’m here to entertain you (in case that wasn’t obvious). But I will say that I don’t think I’m the only one obsessed with food. Most TV commercials are about restaurant offerings (and erectile dysfunction remedies, but I can't help ya there). There are billboards everywhere picturing plump, glistening cheeseburgers. Food is everywhere. And our country is fat. No one has time to commit to changing their lifestyle. But I’m here to tell you that I changed mine. And I’m not one to commit to anything that requires a lot of work. Or thought. Or energy. Or time. Or planning. And other than that second day, it has been relatively easy. And I’ve been satisfied with what I’m eating as well as the results I’ve seen.
I weighed in today just to see how it was going. The last time I weighed, I had lost almost 10 pounds. That was two weeks ago. I ate like a pig last weekend. I stepped onto the scale just to see how I was doing and discovered that I had lost just over two more pounds. Some habits are hard to break – when I saw this the first thing I did was consider getting a chili dog for dinner. I even texted my husband and sort of jokingly said that’s what I wanted to do to celebrate my weight loss. If he had agreed, guess what I’d be eating for dinner.
Friday, December 31, 2010
I Resolve To Be Resolute
Well, it's that time of year again. Time for my annual New Year's Resolutions list. Or what I commonly refer to as the the first lies I will tell myself in the new year.
Last year's resolutions were admirable. Weight loss. Less cursing. More patience. Let's have a quick review and see how I did.
1. Complete Meg's scrapbook from her first year of life - As of today, December 30th, this has neither been completed nor attempted. Meg turned three in October.
2. Limiting my intake of sweets to weekends and special occasions - Last night I ate 6 pieces of chocolate because it was in the house. I would have eaten more, but I didn't have any more. Last night was Tuesday.
3. Not cursing in front of my children. I still do this, but I do it more quietly. So, that is kind of a win.
4. Keeping my car clean and neat - I am going out of town today, so I cleaned and vacuumed it last night. I removed 6 dolls, 5 receipts, 1 half-empty bottle of water, two Target bags, 1 coffee cup, 1 empty styrofoam cup, a box of melted crayons, 3 empty DVD cases, 2 jackets, and 3 socks.
5. Send thank you notes - This one I actually attempted. We had a birthday party for Meg in October and I actually wrote several thank you notes. They were in a box on my kitchen counter for a couple of months and I finally moved them somewhere else when it was time to put out the Christmas decorations. I'm not sure where they are now. I did deliver one to a friend of mine at work. Technically, that is more than I sent out in 2009, so I'm calling this one a win.
6. Stop complaining - Read any blog entry of mine from this year and you'll know whether or not this one was met.
7. I will be more patient with my children - Talk about setting yourself up for failure! What was I thinking?
8. I will be healthier - Considering that I am heavier now than I was when I established this as a resolution, I don't think this one was achieved. I did run in two 5ks this year, so that's something. But, do you know what I ate for dinner prior to the 6 pieces of chocolate? You guessed it - Taco Bell.
9. No serious posts - I had a couple. Sorry.
10. Do more to combat my inherent laziness - I sat around a lot in 2010. And I took a lot of naps. I have added no new hobbies. I averaged about 5 showers per week. A couple of pairs of my pajamas are now beginning to look threadbare. This doesn't look (or smell) like success.
Which brings us to 2011. What shall I set for myself this year? Well, for starters I'm not setting 10 of them again. That was just stupidity. One could argue that I got so bogged down in trying to meet all of these goals that it didn't lend itself to my accomplishing any one of them successfully. That isn't the case - I didn't actively try to reach any of them. But, one could still make that argument.
1. So, obviously one important one is the one to be healthier. I seriously need to do that. Once again, my physical showed that my cholesterol is higher than it needs to be. And I know that my kids are learning their eating habits by watching mine. I need to set a better example for them. I need to be thinner. Not way thinner, but I weigh more than I need to for my frame. The last time I weighed this much I was pregnant. I am still eating for two... Or three... Men. Large Men.
2. I am going to go room by room and clean my house. Well, not clean it. But straighten and de-clutter it. I have a closet upstairs off the guest room that is a fairly big size and is where I do all of my wrapping. There are bags and receipts up there from Christmas 2008. Guests cannot hang their clothes on the rods because they cannot physically make their way over to where the old, out-dated, non-fitting clothes that need to be given away are hanging.
The girls' rooms and bathroom have baby things/toys/soaps/crap that need to be thrown out or given away. I need to update the pictures that are on their shelves. I need to throw out the infant Mylicon that my children haven't used in close to three years. AND I need to start requiring that they keep their rooms tidy. They are old enough now that this responsibility should fall to them. Lord knows I'm not doing it. Perhaps they'll do a better job.
The girls' playroom is a disaster. They still have baby toys down there as well. Toys I've tried to give away previously, but they've seen in the give-away pile and decided that they couldn't live without. We have about 12 tons of Happy Meal crap toys that could probably fill an entire garbage bag to overflowing. There are playing cards all over the place. I know there are plenty more than 52, but certainly not all from the same deck. And we have enough kitchen toys to feed a pretend army. It is a nightmare in there.
My pantry is just horrendous. Everything used to have it's place but now the peanuts are with the mandarin oranges and the olive oil is with the rice. I can't find anything in there. And here's something I just learned at 37 years of age. Spices expire. Did you know that? I'll bet I've been using the same coriander (do I ever use that?) since 1997. I wonder if that means that things like flour expire. And when was the last time I used Crisco? It's probably hard as a rock by now.
In 2010, I did clean out the cabinet under my bathroom sink (which was horrifying) as well as my tupperware cabinet. I have been much less stressed in those areas of the house because I'm not constantly reminded of how disorganized I am. If I could do this in several other rooms of my house, think of how peaceful my life will be.
3. I've got to do Meg's damn scrapbook. Seriously. She'll develop a complex if Kate has one and she doesn't. There is no excuse for not having this done. Actually, I'm sure there is a great excuse. I just haven't thought of it yet. I'm sure it is somehow Mike's fault.
At work we talk about setting SMART goals. That is, goals that are:
S ...uh...whoops. Something I can't remember.
Measurable
Attainable (I think)
Necessary
Timed
No wait, that's SMANT. Well, anyway, the acronym helps you make sure they are realistic (that's the R!!) and that you can easily determine if you have met them. I'm thinking those 3 goals are all of those things so I will end the list there.
Surely to goodness I can accomplish three things in a year. If I cannot, then the resolution in 2012 will have to be to have a crane come in and remove my 500lb ass from my sofa.
I hope you set some good SMART and SMANT goals for yourself in 2011 and that it is your best year yet. Cheers!
...oh yeah, the S is Specific.
Last year's resolutions were admirable. Weight loss. Less cursing. More patience. Let's have a quick review and see how I did.
1. Complete Meg's scrapbook from her first year of life - As of today, December 30th, this has neither been completed nor attempted. Meg turned three in October.
2. Limiting my intake of sweets to weekends and special occasions - Last night I ate 6 pieces of chocolate because it was in the house. I would have eaten more, but I didn't have any more. Last night was Tuesday.
3. Not cursing in front of my children. I still do this, but I do it more quietly. So, that is kind of a win.
4. Keeping my car clean and neat - I am going out of town today, so I cleaned and vacuumed it last night. I removed 6 dolls, 5 receipts, 1 half-empty bottle of water, two Target bags, 1 coffee cup, 1 empty styrofoam cup, a box of melted crayons, 3 empty DVD cases, 2 jackets, and 3 socks.
5. Send thank you notes - This one I actually attempted. We had a birthday party for Meg in October and I actually wrote several thank you notes. They were in a box on my kitchen counter for a couple of months and I finally moved them somewhere else when it was time to put out the Christmas decorations. I'm not sure where they are now. I did deliver one to a friend of mine at work. Technically, that is more than I sent out in 2009, so I'm calling this one a win.
6. Stop complaining - Read any blog entry of mine from this year and you'll know whether or not this one was met.
7. I will be more patient with my children - Talk about setting yourself up for failure! What was I thinking?
8. I will be healthier - Considering that I am heavier now than I was when I established this as a resolution, I don't think this one was achieved. I did run in two 5ks this year, so that's something. But, do you know what I ate for dinner prior to the 6 pieces of chocolate? You guessed it - Taco Bell.
9. No serious posts - I had a couple. Sorry.
10. Do more to combat my inherent laziness - I sat around a lot in 2010. And I took a lot of naps. I have added no new hobbies. I averaged about 5 showers per week. A couple of pairs of my pajamas are now beginning to look threadbare. This doesn't look (or smell) like success.
Which brings us to 2011. What shall I set for myself this year? Well, for starters I'm not setting 10 of them again. That was just stupidity. One could argue that I got so bogged down in trying to meet all of these goals that it didn't lend itself to my accomplishing any one of them successfully. That isn't the case - I didn't actively try to reach any of them. But, one could still make that argument.
1. So, obviously one important one is the one to be healthier. I seriously need to do that. Once again, my physical showed that my cholesterol is higher than it needs to be. And I know that my kids are learning their eating habits by watching mine. I need to set a better example for them. I need to be thinner. Not way thinner, but I weigh more than I need to for my frame. The last time I weighed this much I was pregnant. I am still eating for two... Or three... Men. Large Men.
2. I am going to go room by room and clean my house. Well, not clean it. But straighten and de-clutter it. I have a closet upstairs off the guest room that is a fairly big size and is where I do all of my wrapping. There are bags and receipts up there from Christmas 2008. Guests cannot hang their clothes on the rods because they cannot physically make their way over to where the old, out-dated, non-fitting clothes that need to be given away are hanging.
The girls' rooms and bathroom have baby things/toys/soaps/crap that need to be thrown out or given away. I need to update the pictures that are on their shelves. I need to throw out the infant Mylicon that my children haven't used in close to three years. AND I need to start requiring that they keep their rooms tidy. They are old enough now that this responsibility should fall to them. Lord knows I'm not doing it. Perhaps they'll do a better job.
The girls' playroom is a disaster. They still have baby toys down there as well. Toys I've tried to give away previously, but they've seen in the give-away pile and decided that they couldn't live without. We have about 12 tons of Happy Meal crap toys that could probably fill an entire garbage bag to overflowing. There are playing cards all over the place. I know there are plenty more than 52, but certainly not all from the same deck. And we have enough kitchen toys to feed a pretend army. It is a nightmare in there.
My pantry is just horrendous. Everything used to have it's place but now the peanuts are with the mandarin oranges and the olive oil is with the rice. I can't find anything in there. And here's something I just learned at 37 years of age. Spices expire. Did you know that? I'll bet I've been using the same coriander (do I ever use that?) since 1997. I wonder if that means that things like flour expire. And when was the last time I used Crisco? It's probably hard as a rock by now.
In 2010, I did clean out the cabinet under my bathroom sink (which was horrifying) as well as my tupperware cabinet. I have been much less stressed in those areas of the house because I'm not constantly reminded of how disorganized I am. If I could do this in several other rooms of my house, think of how peaceful my life will be.
3. I've got to do Meg's damn scrapbook. Seriously. She'll develop a complex if Kate has one and she doesn't. There is no excuse for not having this done. Actually, I'm sure there is a great excuse. I just haven't thought of it yet. I'm sure it is somehow Mike's fault.
At work we talk about setting SMART goals. That is, goals that are:
S ...uh...whoops. Something I can't remember.
Measurable
Attainable (I think)
Necessary
Timed
No wait, that's SMANT. Well, anyway, the acronym helps you make sure they are realistic (that's the R!!) and that you can easily determine if you have met them. I'm thinking those 3 goals are all of those things so I will end the list there.
Surely to goodness I can accomplish three things in a year. If I cannot, then the resolution in 2012 will have to be to have a crane come in and remove my 500lb ass from my sofa.
I hope you set some good SMART and SMANT goals for yourself in 2011 and that it is your best year yet. Cheers!
...oh yeah, the S is Specific.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
I Never Dreamed Of A White Christmas
Like the Frasier Fir tree standing tall in my living room, I am a Christmas sap. As clichéd as it sounds, I truly love this time of year. There is such a build-up to Christmas with the music, the smells, the songs, etc., and then every year I get weepy and nostalgic when it must come to an end. We had an extra special Christmas this year in the McCallie household. Below is our Christmas story. Enjoy… and may your days be merry and bright.
We decorated our house during the first weekend of December. This is very early compared to when we would decorate when I was a kid, but fairly late as compared to many of my neighbors. This was really the first year that my kids really seemed to get into the wonder and excitement of the holidays. I missed that for a few years as I made the transition from my traditional Christmas to creating a special experience for my children.
For a couple of years, I was down in the dumps during the holidays because I was no longer doing the things we did when I was a kid. It was no longer about enjoying MY Christmas; it was about creating a Christmas experience that my kids would always remember. As selfish as that sounds, it made me very sad to let go of what I was accustomed to. Of course, now MY Christmas is all about the joy my kids experience. I didn’t realize that fully until this year.
We went and purchased our tree on Sunday, December 4th. We have been going to the same place for several years now – just like my dad and I used to do in Birmingham. Usually, my marriage begins to unravel when we arrive because Mike and I start with very different ideas about what the tree should look like and how much it should cost. This year, we both found the same tree and arrived at a decision in under 10 minutes.
The unraveling of the marriage continues as we bring the tree into the house and place it in its stand. This year, it went relatively smoothly. Sure, we got needles everywhere, and there was some drama with me trying to bear my portion of the weight of the tree as we carried it through the house to its destination (I should say that my portion of the weight is still only about 10% of the weight, but seeing as I have no upper body strength, even that is a challenge). Mike stood it up for the first time and it was leaning just a little. With a quick repositioning, it was straight and ready. One adjustment. That was it.
Now, over the years, I have always been more excited about decorating the tree than Mike has been. Mike generally sits on the couch with a ballgame muted on the TV and hands me the ornaments to hang while I listen to Christmas music. I have secretly resented this because I want him to be excited about the holidays and look forward to all of the traditions I am forcing upon him (tradition that he most likely secretly resents…). It’s not that he’s a Scrooge. He’s not at all. He’s just not the Christmas uber-nerd that I tend to be. This year, the TV was off and we had Mike’s full attention. I know he did it because it’s important to me and to the kids. I think he enjoyed their faces enough to where next year he’ll look forward to doing it. And his participation in it this year without prompting from me kept our marriage intact. At least for another year.
Anyway, the girls were bummed that we made them take their naps when we got home – they wanted to immediately put up the tree and decorate it. Mike and I put the tree in the stand and had it ready to go so that it would be ready to be decorated by the time they woke up. When they woke up, I was busily preparing the spaghetti sauce that I decided we needed to eat for dinner. I had done this early in order to give the flavors time to permeate. Of course, that had set me back in stringing the lights on the tree. The girls were growing impatient because they expected the tree to be primed for decorating when they woke up and seemingly, I had made no progress.
So, with the spaghetti sauce bubbling away in the next room, I began the arduous task of stringing hundreds of lights around the tree. This is usually the time when I am cursing Mike in my head for being of no help while I’m being covered in sap from head to toe with a long strand of lights that are tangled up beyond reason. Granted, light-stringing has to be a one person job and there’s no way I would let him do it. Still, by this time, I’m usually rankled to the point of just being angry at him for anything and everything, so the easiest thing to do is simply curse his name while I try to wrap the lights around each and every branch. Of course, halfway through the project, I lose interest in being so meticulous so every year we end up with hundreds of lights on the lowest third of the tree and the rest of them sparsely twinkling here and there.
This year, the lights went up without incident and it was time to hang the ornaments. The girls were literally squealing and jumping up and down when we told them it was time for them to help. This year is the first time that’s happened. They were bulldozing their way past me and grabbing ornaments out of the storage container as fast as they could. They loved every ornament they saw. “This one is SO beautiful”, they would say with each new snowman or candy cane they would pull out. They got really excited when they found one they had made at school or one that had a character on it they liked. (Try as I might, I couldn’t keep them from finding and hanging Barney…)
We had the sounds of O Holy Night and The Holly And The Ivy filling the air as we all decorated the tree. I was madly snapping pictures so I could capture the smiles and togetherness. I got a great shot of Kate on her Daddy’s shoulders hanging one up high. And, of course, I got several of the one branch that the girls had hung 78 ornaments on; weighing it down so much that it almost reached the floor. And every few seconds we would hear a gentle “thunk” or “clank” as the ones that had been hung by little hands simply fell repeatedly off of the branches. It was a scene that warmed my heart. And the fact that we made it though it without an outburst or meltdown from me was… well, I suppose it was nothing short of a Christmas miracle.
As the weeks drew on and our Advent calendar showed fewer and fewer days left to celebrate, the girls were giddy and were unusually cooperative. You see, Allison, our Elf on the Shelf, spent the holiday season with us for the first time this year. She kept close tabs on the girls and was often used as leverage when they would act ugly. If Meg would pout, Mike would say, “Do I need to go touch Allison and take away her magic?” If Kate talked back to me I would say, “Are you seeing this, Allison?” Boy, are we going to miss having her in the house. Someone needs to needs to come up with a “Gnome in Your Home” (patent pending) to watch them for the rest of the year until Allison comes back.
All season, the girls sang Christmas songs. I loved hearing their interpretation of the lyrics:
We Three Kings Of Oreos Are
God Rescue Merry Gentlemen
Deck The Halls With Balls Of Jolly
And Kate, sweet Kate, wanted to give her daddy a picture for Christmas. She asked me if I would wrap it for her. I told her I would so she went into the next room with her paper and her crayons. She came back a few minutes later with a picture of a green stick figure and a heart. I asked her who the person was. She said it was her daddy. Then she told me, “I made him green since it’s his favorite color. And then I drew a heart because I love him.” I almost collapsed into a puddle of tears, but before I could, she quickly gasped and said, “I forgot to make a rainbow!” and ran out of the room to finish her masterpiece.
After it was wrapped and under the tree, she would pick it up almost daily and look at it and ask when it would be time for Daddy to open it. Finally on Christmas morning, it was time. Well, it wasn’t exactly time. We hadn’t even started on our stockings yet. But Kate was about to burst out of her skin for Mike to open it. So, we agreed he should go on and open it. You could see it all over Kate’s face – the pride she had in her work. The hope that Mike would love it. It was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. He loved it, of course, and gave her a big bear hug. Meanwhile, Meg opened a stocking stuffer that did not meet with her approval so she chucked it across the room. My girls are very different. And I love them both to pieces. (In Meg’s defense, for the rest of the day she would say, “Thank you SO much” every time she opened one of her gifts. Very sweet. Just don’t give her a bouncy ball that lights up in her stocking. Lesson learned.)
The other thing that made this Christmas extra-special – aside from being together with Mike’s family on Christmas Eve and my parents on Christmas day – was that we awoke to snow on Christmas morning. And it continued through the late afternoon. In all, we got about 5 inches of accumulation. At 37 years old I had my first white Christmas! It was absolutely beautiful! I couldn’t stop watching it come down. And it gave the girls something to look at in wonder after all of the presents had been opened. They were too busy wanting to make a snowman and roll around in it to realize that Christmas had ended.
And so it ended. As it does every year. The gifts were all opened. The food had made us all uncomfortably full. Christmas music was playing, but you knew that tomorrow you wouldn’t be listening to it anymore. The build-up was over. This magical season we’d anticipated for so long was over and we’d only have the blah of the winter to look forward to. Actually, we have a trip to my sister’s for New Year’s to look forward to. That’s the only thing that keeps me from being really sad on Christmas day. Knowing we’ll be in Greenville doing it all again in a week.
On Christmas night, my dad and I were the only ones still up. We sat out on the screened in porch in front of the fire with my glass of wine and his glass of scotch listening to Christmas music for the last time for 11 months. We talked about his Christmases growing up. We talked about my love of my childhood Christmas and how fun it was to watch my kids experience it for real this year – perhaps for the first time. It was a sign of a lot of fun and memorable Christmases to come. I was getting a little sad wondering what would be the last Christmas song I’d listen to this season. We decided to end on a silly note – Stan Freberg’s Christmas Dragnet which is probably 50 years old. He laughed at the nostalgia it brought to him. “I haven’t heard this in probably 50 years!” And I laughed at the fact that I was such a nerd that I actually think it’s just as funny as he does!
I turned off the fire and then the music and we came inside closing the door on a wonderful day and thinking to myself, okay, only 364 days to go.
We decorated our house during the first weekend of December. This is very early compared to when we would decorate when I was a kid, but fairly late as compared to many of my neighbors. This was really the first year that my kids really seemed to get into the wonder and excitement of the holidays. I missed that for a few years as I made the transition from my traditional Christmas to creating a special experience for my children.
For a couple of years, I was down in the dumps during the holidays because I was no longer doing the things we did when I was a kid. It was no longer about enjoying MY Christmas; it was about creating a Christmas experience that my kids would always remember. As selfish as that sounds, it made me very sad to let go of what I was accustomed to. Of course, now MY Christmas is all about the joy my kids experience. I didn’t realize that fully until this year.
We went and purchased our tree on Sunday, December 4th. We have been going to the same place for several years now – just like my dad and I used to do in Birmingham. Usually, my marriage begins to unravel when we arrive because Mike and I start with very different ideas about what the tree should look like and how much it should cost. This year, we both found the same tree and arrived at a decision in under 10 minutes.
The unraveling of the marriage continues as we bring the tree into the house and place it in its stand. This year, it went relatively smoothly. Sure, we got needles everywhere, and there was some drama with me trying to bear my portion of the weight of the tree as we carried it through the house to its destination (I should say that my portion of the weight is still only about 10% of the weight, but seeing as I have no upper body strength, even that is a challenge). Mike stood it up for the first time and it was leaning just a little. With a quick repositioning, it was straight and ready. One adjustment. That was it.
Now, over the years, I have always been more excited about decorating the tree than Mike has been. Mike generally sits on the couch with a ballgame muted on the TV and hands me the ornaments to hang while I listen to Christmas music. I have secretly resented this because I want him to be excited about the holidays and look forward to all of the traditions I am forcing upon him (tradition that he most likely secretly resents…). It’s not that he’s a Scrooge. He’s not at all. He’s just not the Christmas uber-nerd that I tend to be. This year, the TV was off and we had Mike’s full attention. I know he did it because it’s important to me and to the kids. I think he enjoyed their faces enough to where next year he’ll look forward to doing it. And his participation in it this year without prompting from me kept our marriage intact. At least for another year.
Anyway, the girls were bummed that we made them take their naps when we got home – they wanted to immediately put up the tree and decorate it. Mike and I put the tree in the stand and had it ready to go so that it would be ready to be decorated by the time they woke up. When they woke up, I was busily preparing the spaghetti sauce that I decided we needed to eat for dinner. I had done this early in order to give the flavors time to permeate. Of course, that had set me back in stringing the lights on the tree. The girls were growing impatient because they expected the tree to be primed for decorating when they woke up and seemingly, I had made no progress.
So, with the spaghetti sauce bubbling away in the next room, I began the arduous task of stringing hundreds of lights around the tree. This is usually the time when I am cursing Mike in my head for being of no help while I’m being covered in sap from head to toe with a long strand of lights that are tangled up beyond reason. Granted, light-stringing has to be a one person job and there’s no way I would let him do it. Still, by this time, I’m usually rankled to the point of just being angry at him for anything and everything, so the easiest thing to do is simply curse his name while I try to wrap the lights around each and every branch. Of course, halfway through the project, I lose interest in being so meticulous so every year we end up with hundreds of lights on the lowest third of the tree and the rest of them sparsely twinkling here and there.
This year, the lights went up without incident and it was time to hang the ornaments. The girls were literally squealing and jumping up and down when we told them it was time for them to help. This year is the first time that’s happened. They were bulldozing their way past me and grabbing ornaments out of the storage container as fast as they could. They loved every ornament they saw. “This one is SO beautiful”, they would say with each new snowman or candy cane they would pull out. They got really excited when they found one they had made at school or one that had a character on it they liked. (Try as I might, I couldn’t keep them from finding and hanging Barney…)
We had the sounds of O Holy Night and The Holly And The Ivy filling the air as we all decorated the tree. I was madly snapping pictures so I could capture the smiles and togetherness. I got a great shot of Kate on her Daddy’s shoulders hanging one up high. And, of course, I got several of the one branch that the girls had hung 78 ornaments on; weighing it down so much that it almost reached the floor. And every few seconds we would hear a gentle “thunk” or “clank” as the ones that had been hung by little hands simply fell repeatedly off of the branches. It was a scene that warmed my heart. And the fact that we made it though it without an outburst or meltdown from me was… well, I suppose it was nothing short of a Christmas miracle.
As the weeks drew on and our Advent calendar showed fewer and fewer days left to celebrate, the girls were giddy and were unusually cooperative. You see, Allison, our Elf on the Shelf, spent the holiday season with us for the first time this year. She kept close tabs on the girls and was often used as leverage when they would act ugly. If Meg would pout, Mike would say, “Do I need to go touch Allison and take away her magic?” If Kate talked back to me I would say, “Are you seeing this, Allison?” Boy, are we going to miss having her in the house. Someone needs to needs to come up with a “Gnome in Your Home” (patent pending) to watch them for the rest of the year until Allison comes back.
All season, the girls sang Christmas songs. I loved hearing their interpretation of the lyrics:
We Three Kings Of Oreos Are
God Rescue Merry Gentlemen
Deck The Halls With Balls Of Jolly
And Kate, sweet Kate, wanted to give her daddy a picture for Christmas. She asked me if I would wrap it for her. I told her I would so she went into the next room with her paper and her crayons. She came back a few minutes later with a picture of a green stick figure and a heart. I asked her who the person was. She said it was her daddy. Then she told me, “I made him green since it’s his favorite color. And then I drew a heart because I love him.” I almost collapsed into a puddle of tears, but before I could, she quickly gasped and said, “I forgot to make a rainbow!” and ran out of the room to finish her masterpiece.
After it was wrapped and under the tree, she would pick it up almost daily and look at it and ask when it would be time for Daddy to open it. Finally on Christmas morning, it was time. Well, it wasn’t exactly time. We hadn’t even started on our stockings yet. But Kate was about to burst out of her skin for Mike to open it. So, we agreed he should go on and open it. You could see it all over Kate’s face – the pride she had in her work. The hope that Mike would love it. It was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. He loved it, of course, and gave her a big bear hug. Meanwhile, Meg opened a stocking stuffer that did not meet with her approval so she chucked it across the room. My girls are very different. And I love them both to pieces. (In Meg’s defense, for the rest of the day she would say, “Thank you SO much” every time she opened one of her gifts. Very sweet. Just don’t give her a bouncy ball that lights up in her stocking. Lesson learned.)
The other thing that made this Christmas extra-special – aside from being together with Mike’s family on Christmas Eve and my parents on Christmas day – was that we awoke to snow on Christmas morning. And it continued through the late afternoon. In all, we got about 5 inches of accumulation. At 37 years old I had my first white Christmas! It was absolutely beautiful! I couldn’t stop watching it come down. And it gave the girls something to look at in wonder after all of the presents had been opened. They were too busy wanting to make a snowman and roll around in it to realize that Christmas had ended.
And so it ended. As it does every year. The gifts were all opened. The food had made us all uncomfortably full. Christmas music was playing, but you knew that tomorrow you wouldn’t be listening to it anymore. The build-up was over. This magical season we’d anticipated for so long was over and we’d only have the blah of the winter to look forward to. Actually, we have a trip to my sister’s for New Year’s to look forward to. That’s the only thing that keeps me from being really sad on Christmas day. Knowing we’ll be in Greenville doing it all again in a week.
On Christmas night, my dad and I were the only ones still up. We sat out on the screened in porch in front of the fire with my glass of wine and his glass of scotch listening to Christmas music for the last time for 11 months. We talked about his Christmases growing up. We talked about my love of my childhood Christmas and how fun it was to watch my kids experience it for real this year – perhaps for the first time. It was a sign of a lot of fun and memorable Christmases to come. I was getting a little sad wondering what would be the last Christmas song I’d listen to this season. We decided to end on a silly note – Stan Freberg’s Christmas Dragnet which is probably 50 years old. He laughed at the nostalgia it brought to him. “I haven’t heard this in probably 50 years!” And I laughed at the fact that I was such a nerd that I actually think it’s just as funny as he does!
I turned off the fire and then the music and we came inside closing the door on a wonderful day and thinking to myself, okay, only 364 days to go.
Monday, December 6, 2010
How 'Bout Them War Eagles!
In this season if miracles, perhaps there are none bigger than the fact that Auburn is ranked #1 in the BCS poll. It seems like as long as I have been an Auburn fan (and, I’ll get into what that means later) it has been one disappointment after another.
Not that we haven’t had some really good seasons – we have. We went undefeated when I was in school there in the early-mid 90’s. Of course, we were on probation at the time so we couldn’t go to a bowl or have a shot at the national title. Then, more recently, under Tommy Tuberville we were undefeated and did not get an invitation to play for the national championship. Very discouraging. We seem to always find a way to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Until Cam Newton. Except…oh, wait…we might have paid him to play for us. I certainly hope it isn’t true and the NCAA doesn’t seem to think there’s been any wrongdoing (at least for now), but I still have an uneasy feeling about this season. Cam is a tremendous athlete and has been awesome (or, AUsome, I suppose) to watch. It has really been a fun season to experience except for the dark cloud that has been following us around amid rumors of possible pay-to-play shenanigans. I hope it’s not true and I hope we win in Arizona. I will be cheering (and probably cussing some too) for my Tigers from home and will be very proud of we win the title. That would be AUsome for us, for sure.
And that’s about the extent of my plans for the game. I’ll be excited if we win and bummed if we lose. And, you know, then I’ll go back to my day to day life. So, that’s what makes me an Auburn fan and not an Auburn person.
You may find yourself asking, "But Maggie, what the difference in an Auburn fan and an Auburn person?" Let me see if I can explain it to you the way it I understand it as exemplified by my college boyfriend.
An Auburn FAN is someone who goes to some of the games and roots for Auburn to win. They are able to take a win or a loss in stride and focus on their job, their family, their hygiene and other essential duties in their lives. They don’t really like people who root for Alabama but have a healthy respect for the rivalry that exists. If it rains or if there’s a blowout, they’ll leave a game early. They may have their diplomas framed in their office and could perhaps have some kind of Auburn trinket on a bookshelf in their house. They look back at their college time with mostly fondness (but perhaps some regret at the choices of hair) but love their life now and wouldn’t go back and do college over again.
In contrast, an Auburn PERSON is a complete loon who was born and raised to worship Auburn and everything associated with it. These are the people whose parents said to them, “You can go anywhere you want to for college. But I’m only paying you to go to Auburn”. Their mood rises and falls with the performance of the football (or insert other sport here) team. They absolutely loathe University of Alabama graduates and are unable to see reason where this is concerned. They stay at a game until the bitter end no matter how crappy the weather or how much Auburn is winning or losing. Their Auburn paraphernalia isn’t limited to one bookshelf, one wall, or even one room. No, their love of Auburn is proudly displayed in most rooms of their house. Whereas some people may have contemporary style, these people’s style is called “Auburn”. They get down to Auburn any chance they get and probably organize neighborhood or work caravans for multiple sporting events. And last but not least, they believe wholeheartedly and will actually spend the time on several occasions to tell you that there is actually a difference between an Auburn fan and an Auburn person.
I suppose I’m just a lowly old fan. I love Auburn. I’m glad we’re winning. And that’s about the end of it. Have I given us a few “War Damn Eagles” this season? You bet! I’ve been excited. It is exciting. But I've kept in it what I would consider a healthy perspective.
My college roommate, whom you may remember from this story, and I always thought the battle cry “War Damn Eagle” was funny. We understood “War Eagle” even though a lot of people are confused by that since we are the tigers. But throwing the “damn” in there, kind of makes us sound like a bunch of loudmouth, football-lovin’ Alabama rednecks. As in, “War Dayum Eagle, Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaw!”
We thought it would be funny to insert some other curse words in there just to see if it packed the same punch. A few of my favorites:
War Poot Eagle!
War LordyBabyJesus Eagle!
War Butthole Eagle!
War Buns Eagle!
Oh, the fun you can have when you’re 19!
So, on January 10th, I’ll be tuning in like a good little Auburn fan and will be very emotional about it – win or lose - in the 15 minutes after the conclusion. And that will be that. And hopefully, the NCAA is truly done with their investigation and this cloud of suspicion around Auburn athletics will dissipate. I won't give anyone a hard time for thinking that Auburn did something dirty to get Cam to come and play. Because it is very possible that we did. I'd love a win and a BCS title, but I will keep it in perspective and not go all "Auburn person" on you about it.
Until next football season, War Sphincter Eagle to ya!
Not that we haven’t had some really good seasons – we have. We went undefeated when I was in school there in the early-mid 90’s. Of course, we were on probation at the time so we couldn’t go to a bowl or have a shot at the national title. Then, more recently, under Tommy Tuberville we were undefeated and did not get an invitation to play for the national championship. Very discouraging. We seem to always find a way to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Until Cam Newton. Except…oh, wait…we might have paid him to play for us. I certainly hope it isn’t true and the NCAA doesn’t seem to think there’s been any wrongdoing (at least for now), but I still have an uneasy feeling about this season. Cam is a tremendous athlete and has been awesome (or, AUsome, I suppose) to watch. It has really been a fun season to experience except for the dark cloud that has been following us around amid rumors of possible pay-to-play shenanigans. I hope it’s not true and I hope we win in Arizona. I will be cheering (and probably cussing some too) for my Tigers from home and will be very proud of we win the title. That would be AUsome for us, for sure.
And that’s about the extent of my plans for the game. I’ll be excited if we win and bummed if we lose. And, you know, then I’ll go back to my day to day life. So, that’s what makes me an Auburn fan and not an Auburn person.
You may find yourself asking, "But Maggie, what the difference in an Auburn fan and an Auburn person?" Let me see if I can explain it to you the way it I understand it as exemplified by my college boyfriend.
An Auburn FAN is someone who goes to some of the games and roots for Auburn to win. They are able to take a win or a loss in stride and focus on their job, their family, their hygiene and other essential duties in their lives. They don’t really like people who root for Alabama but have a healthy respect for the rivalry that exists. If it rains or if there’s a blowout, they’ll leave a game early. They may have their diplomas framed in their office and could perhaps have some kind of Auburn trinket on a bookshelf in their house. They look back at their college time with mostly fondness (but perhaps some regret at the choices of hair) but love their life now and wouldn’t go back and do college over again.
In contrast, an Auburn PERSON is a complete loon who was born and raised to worship Auburn and everything associated with it. These are the people whose parents said to them, “You can go anywhere you want to for college. But I’m only paying you to go to Auburn”. Their mood rises and falls with the performance of the football (or insert other sport here) team. They absolutely loathe University of Alabama graduates and are unable to see reason where this is concerned. They stay at a game until the bitter end no matter how crappy the weather or how much Auburn is winning or losing. Their Auburn paraphernalia isn’t limited to one bookshelf, one wall, or even one room. No, their love of Auburn is proudly displayed in most rooms of their house. Whereas some people may have contemporary style, these people’s style is called “Auburn”. They get down to Auburn any chance they get and probably organize neighborhood or work caravans for multiple sporting events. And last but not least, they believe wholeheartedly and will actually spend the time on several occasions to tell you that there is actually a difference between an Auburn fan and an Auburn person.
I suppose I’m just a lowly old fan. I love Auburn. I’m glad we’re winning. And that’s about the end of it. Have I given us a few “War Damn Eagles” this season? You bet! I’ve been excited. It is exciting. But I've kept in it what I would consider a healthy perspective.
My college roommate, whom you may remember from this story, and I always thought the battle cry “War Damn Eagle” was funny. We understood “War Eagle” even though a lot of people are confused by that since we are the tigers. But throwing the “damn” in there, kind of makes us sound like a bunch of loudmouth, football-lovin’ Alabama rednecks. As in, “War Dayum Eagle, Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaw!”
We thought it would be funny to insert some other curse words in there just to see if it packed the same punch. A few of my favorites:
War Poot Eagle!
War LordyBabyJesus Eagle!
War Butthole Eagle!
War Buns Eagle!
Oh, the fun you can have when you’re 19!
So, on January 10th, I’ll be tuning in like a good little Auburn fan and will be very emotional about it – win or lose - in the 15 minutes after the conclusion. And that will be that. And hopefully, the NCAA is truly done with their investigation and this cloud of suspicion around Auburn athletics will dissipate. I won't give anyone a hard time for thinking that Auburn did something dirty to get Cam to come and play. Because it is very possible that we did. I'd love a win and a BCS title, but I will keep it in perspective and not go all "Auburn person" on you about it.
Until next football season, War Sphincter Eagle to ya!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
I'm Unsophisticated And Stuff
I just re-read my last blog post and I feel I must apologize for it. It was horribly boring and was not at all packed with the usual, copious amounts of sarcasm. Therefore, I am returning to my roots and "giving the people (my 1-2 readers) what they want".
I went out of town last weekend on a much needed girls' trip. We went to the North Carolina mountains and got to shop, drink, relax, drink, eat, drink, laugh, drink, and drink. There were seven of us from the neighborhood and we had a lot of laughs and even got to see a little snow.
Of course, as always happens when a bunch of girls get together, everything that was planned was planned around the next meal. Where it would come from. Who would cook it. When we'd eat it. It's all we could talk about. It's all we wanted to think about. So, one day we ended up going to a lunch place where part of the group had been the previous day before the rest of us had arrived. They described the menu as "eclectic" but very good. Usually an "eclectic" menu means that they are going to have a bunch of weird stuff that I will not recognize. This place was no different.
We walked in and it smelled wonderful. It was a cozy little place with funky decor. I began to get nervous.
I'm not cool enough for this place, I thought to myself.
She's not cool enough for this place, the other patrons seemed to be thinking.
Still, we went to our table tucked back in a little room and began opening our menus. The first thing I noticed was that there seemed to be an exorbitant amount of dishes that featured tempeh. The one that stood out the most was an avocado tempeh melt. I hate to admit that I was not entirely sure what tempeh was until I looked it up for the purpose of typing this story. Tempeh is basically a soybean patty and is not exactly that "out there". I mean, it's a topping option at my favorite pizza place, so how weird could it be?
But when it's the main ingredient in several menu items, I begin to get irritated. It's almost like the menu is saying,
Tempeh is so normal that we use it as a base in many of our dishes. If you don't know what it is, your palate is not sophisticated enough, you boorish hillbilly.
I don't know about you, but when I see a menu item that is a "melt", I am hoping to receive something horrible for me. Tempeh and avocados? Who are they trying to impress?
So, as I began pouring over the menu I became less confident I would find something that I would recognize and, consequently, would want to eat. I saw an appetizer - the always popular plantains with mango yogurt (WHAT??!! Ever heard of nachos, people?). I wasn't really that hungry, so I skipped past the appetizers and looked toward the main dishes. I scoured through all kinds of words I didn't understand like "aioli" and finally landed on fish tacos. That seemed fairly harmless, but I am so unrefined that I really don't like to eat fish in my tacos. I'm a beef kind of a girl. Fish makes a dish more distinguished. The assumption you would make if you looked at this menu is that only a common redneck would eat chicken or beef in a taco. But, I was happy with my choice so now it was time to tell the waitress (In a place like this, I'm sure the word "waitress" would be frowned upon, They probably call them "waitperson" or "cuisine attendant") what I would be having to drink.
I asked her for a diet coke. You could practically hear the music screech to a halt and all conversations cease when I made this request. She looked down her nose at me and told me that they did not have Coke products, but they only had Zevia colas. Naturally, I had never heard of a damn Zevia, but I ordered a "Zero-Calorie-Zevia". This was supposed to be the closest thing they had to the barbaric Diet Coke that their simple-minded patron (me) had requested. I was growing more and more disgusted with the pretentious menu.
And then it happened.
As the others at my table were skeptically ordering their Zevais, I noticed another drink option that had been kind of set off from the rest in order to make it stand out. It was "Organic Carrot Juice". And it was $4.00. Seriously? Organic carrot juice? I shouldn't have been surprised that they had organic juices. I mean, this place was dripping with organic and vegan and farm-raised and non-antibiotic-eatin' things. But seriously - WHO DRINKS CARROT JUICE?!! I have watched enough Looney Tunes to know that Bugs Bunny does. Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone?!!
WHO has EVER ordered that?! WHY would you order that unless you just want your friends to think you are soooo cultured?
It gets worse.
Right beneath the place where it had Organic Carrot Juice it had a blurb that announced the you could get it with ginger for seventy-five cents more. A bargain if you ask me!
So, let me get this straight. Not only am I going to be a complete douche bag for ordering freakin' organic carrot juice, but I am now going to shout from the rooftops that I am an even bigger A-hole by demanding they add ginger to it?! How pretentious could this place be? Or, I am just a simple-minded imbecile who has no culture and no palate?
Places like this are so annoying to me because they just cannot be normal. They try way too hard to be so genteel and sophisticated which makes them a total turnoff to me They want me to know what a dolt I am because I do not regularly eat what they are offering. They tell me I am also probably killing innocent animals, melting the glaciers, and raping the land just by waking up in the morning. Why do I even get out of bed?
Maybe I am just too simple. Maybe not wanting a tempeh melt makes me weird. Maybe ginger is what makes organic carrot juice the drink of choice for the fine folks in the Carolina mountains. Maybe the Diet Coke executives run sweatshops overseas and the good people at Zevia are building elementary schools in Somalia. Maybe I could learn a few things at a place like this.
Or maybe I should have a coke and smile and move on.
I went out of town last weekend on a much needed girls' trip. We went to the North Carolina mountains and got to shop, drink, relax, drink, eat, drink, laugh, drink, and drink. There were seven of us from the neighborhood and we had a lot of laughs and even got to see a little snow.
Of course, as always happens when a bunch of girls get together, everything that was planned was planned around the next meal. Where it would come from. Who would cook it. When we'd eat it. It's all we could talk about. It's all we wanted to think about. So, one day we ended up going to a lunch place where part of the group had been the previous day before the rest of us had arrived. They described the menu as "eclectic" but very good. Usually an "eclectic" menu means that they are going to have a bunch of weird stuff that I will not recognize. This place was no different.
We walked in and it smelled wonderful. It was a cozy little place with funky decor. I began to get nervous.
I'm not cool enough for this place, I thought to myself.
She's not cool enough for this place, the other patrons seemed to be thinking.
Still, we went to our table tucked back in a little room and began opening our menus. The first thing I noticed was that there seemed to be an exorbitant amount of dishes that featured tempeh. The one that stood out the most was an avocado tempeh melt. I hate to admit that I was not entirely sure what tempeh was until I looked it up for the purpose of typing this story. Tempeh is basically a soybean patty and is not exactly that "out there". I mean, it's a topping option at my favorite pizza place, so how weird could it be?
But when it's the main ingredient in several menu items, I begin to get irritated. It's almost like the menu is saying,
Tempeh is so normal that we use it as a base in many of our dishes. If you don't know what it is, your palate is not sophisticated enough, you boorish hillbilly.
I don't know about you, but when I see a menu item that is a "melt", I am hoping to receive something horrible for me. Tempeh and avocados? Who are they trying to impress?
So, as I began pouring over the menu I became less confident I would find something that I would recognize and, consequently, would want to eat. I saw an appetizer - the always popular plantains with mango yogurt (WHAT??!! Ever heard of nachos, people?). I wasn't really that hungry, so I skipped past the appetizers and looked toward the main dishes. I scoured through all kinds of words I didn't understand like "aioli" and finally landed on fish tacos. That seemed fairly harmless, but I am so unrefined that I really don't like to eat fish in my tacos. I'm a beef kind of a girl. Fish makes a dish more distinguished. The assumption you would make if you looked at this menu is that only a common redneck would eat chicken or beef in a taco. But, I was happy with my choice so now it was time to tell the waitress (In a place like this, I'm sure the word "waitress" would be frowned upon, They probably call them "waitperson" or "cuisine attendant") what I would be having to drink.
I asked her for a diet coke. You could practically hear the music screech to a halt and all conversations cease when I made this request. She looked down her nose at me and told me that they did not have Coke products, but they only had Zevia colas. Naturally, I had never heard of a damn Zevia, but I ordered a "Zero-Calorie-Zevia". This was supposed to be the closest thing they had to the barbaric Diet Coke that their simple-minded patron (me) had requested. I was growing more and more disgusted with the pretentious menu.
And then it happened.
As the others at my table were skeptically ordering their Zevais, I noticed another drink option that had been kind of set off from the rest in order to make it stand out. It was "Organic Carrot Juice". And it was $4.00. Seriously? Organic carrot juice? I shouldn't have been surprised that they had organic juices. I mean, this place was dripping with organic and vegan and farm-raised and non-antibiotic-eatin' things. But seriously - WHO DRINKS CARROT JUICE?!! I have watched enough Looney Tunes to know that Bugs Bunny does. Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone?!!
WHO has EVER ordered that?! WHY would you order that unless you just want your friends to think you are soooo cultured?
It gets worse.
Right beneath the place where it had Organic Carrot Juice it had a blurb that announced the you could get it with ginger for seventy-five cents more. A bargain if you ask me!
So, let me get this straight. Not only am I going to be a complete douche bag for ordering freakin' organic carrot juice, but I am now going to shout from the rooftops that I am an even bigger A-hole by demanding they add ginger to it?! How pretentious could this place be? Or, I am just a simple-minded imbecile who has no culture and no palate?
Places like this are so annoying to me because they just cannot be normal. They try way too hard to be so genteel and sophisticated which makes them a total turnoff to me They want me to know what a dolt I am because I do not regularly eat what they are offering. They tell me I am also probably killing innocent animals, melting the glaciers, and raping the land just by waking up in the morning. Why do I even get out of bed?
Maybe I am just too simple. Maybe not wanting a tempeh melt makes me weird. Maybe ginger is what makes organic carrot juice the drink of choice for the fine folks in the Carolina mountains. Maybe the Diet Coke executives run sweatshops overseas and the good people at Zevia are building elementary schools in Somalia. Maybe I could learn a few things at a place like this.
Or maybe I should have a coke and smile and move on.
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